“10 Steps for Making & Releasing an EP”

Thanks for downloading this free guide! ill Factor from Beat Academy here, and in this free guide,
I’ll be walking you through the 10 steps to making and releasing your very own EP as an
independent artist.

These are the same 10 steps Graham and I went through when we made our EP last year, “The
Good Life”, and they’ve worked for plenty of Recording Revolution students as well.

Let’s dive into it…

Step 1: Planning Your EP

Before you start making music for your EP, its important to have a plan set in place. As creatives,
we want to dive into the music creation process, but to stay accountable, and make sure that you
do release something - you need to have some kind of structure and plan to make your EP
happen.



This is where the magic “D” word comes in: Deadlines!

If you have the desire to release an EP as an artist, it’s important to set a clear deadline for when
the music will be published out to the world.

First, choose your release day - I personally like going with 90 days, as it’s more than enough
time to make a few songs and release them, while having some friendly pressure to get things
going.

So grab a calendar, look at the future, and decide when you’re going to release your EP.

From there, start going backwards.

Think about it: If you’re going to release something in 90 days, by when do you need to get the
album artwork done? When should the tracks be ready? When should the tracks be mastered?

Also, be realistic on how much time you have to work on music while balancing your work/
life balance.

If you’ve only got an hour every other night to work on music, that’s fine. Plenty of my
students don’t have music as their full-time job, and it’s a side passion for them.

But figure out how many hours a week you can work on music, and start mapping out deadlines
for certain milestones to releasing your EP.

Remember: How many songs you release will impact how much time the EP will take. If
you’re producing 6 songs instead of 3, that’s twice the amount of work!

Once you’ve mapped out the general release schedule for your EP, don’t be discouraged by how
much time and effort it honestly takes. You’re taking steps to releasing a real music project, and
they need.

Here are some practical things to capture when you’re making your EP:

• Have some form of social media platform to connect with people

• Go live on social media (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube), and show and capture the “why”
behind your music

• Capture and reward fan reactions to your sneak peeks - screenshot and remember people
who show interest in your music, and give them a shout out when you release your music

But what do you do if you have no fans?

This is how you then start to embark on your musical journey. By starting to release bits of your
music, you’ll begin to gather interest to your EP release.

Step 2: Collaborators
If you’re a solo artist writing, recording, producing and mixing them yourself, collaboration
might be something you’re not that interested in.

However, as a Grammy-nominated producer who’s worked with artists like Justin Timberlake, Sia,
Jason Derulo, and many others, here are my honest thoughts: collaboration is one of the best
ways to spark creativity and new musical ideas.

You have something unique to offer musically, because of your own individual experiences
and musical skills.

And by collaborating with someone else, you’ll be able to take advantage of their unique musical
identity, and you’ll both unlock a deeper level of your talent than you realize.

So start thinking: who and what kinds of musicians could you collaborate with to bring new
inspiration and ideas into your music?

Collaborating can be very different for various musicians. Maybe you don’t have the studio space
to have another musician in the room with you. Or maybe you’re not in a city where you can
connect and collaborate with other musicians in person.

But collaboration can take various forms. You can invite feedback on your early demos, getting
ideas from friends whose musical opinions you respect.

There’s also resources online to connect with other musicians. From websites such as
soundbetter.com, or vocalizr.com, you can easily find and invite other musicians to collaborate
and work with.

You want to collaborate with people that will fill in musical gaps for you, whether it’s having a
skilled guitar player, or a great sound designer to help you take your music forward.

But keep in mind that what you’re after the most is finding honest, clear perspective on how
to develop your music further.

However, you can sometimes get bad and wrong perspectives on your music. You want to be
strategic with whose opinion you listen to on your music, as opposed to listening to anyone on
the street!

And remember that collaboration doesn’t even have to be someone writing and producing with
you.

It can be as simple as having someone you trust listening to your early demos, giving you mix
feedback, and contributing ideas.

Step 3: Making Song Skeletons

Often, all you need to kickstart a great song - a groove and a simple chord progression.

One of the easiest ways to do that is to go through any drum loops you might have, try out
different chord progressions and different sounds.

When Graham and I made the EP, that’s how we came up with several song ideas.

Once the structure of the song has been created, Graham began laying down demo vocals on the
existing production to start putting the vocal melody together.

Ultimately, you want to come up with as many ideas as possible, and then select the ones
that are the strongest to use for your EP.

When you’re at this step, don’t focus too much on song structure. Instead, focus on idea
generation and trying out as many different melodies and hooks as you can come up with.

Whenever I’m producing music, I always keep asking myself a few questions, such as:
• What’s the journey that I’m placing the listener on?

• Are there peaks, valleys and turns to the overall song?

• What’s carrying the track forward at key sections of the song?

• How am I building tension and release throughout the track?

Step 4: Write Better Lyrics

Writing lyrics can sometimes seem like a dark art to people who struggle with it. I personally wish
I had the skills of a poet, but that just isn’t me.

So here are a few simple strategies that have worked for me whenever I’m writing lyrics for a
song.

Step 1: Start with the melody in place.

If you’ve already written some chords, before thinking of words, think of a melody first.

Imagine you’re writing a lead melody for another instrument, whether it’s a violin or lead electric
guitar.

Loop the chords over and over, and try out different melodies to see what sticks.

To me, the melody of a song is far more important that lyrics - so start with it first, and then when
it’s tasty, catchy and memorable?

It creates a structure for you to fit the lyrics in.

It helps you eliminate certain words and phrases that wouldn’t work with your song, and gives you
a place to start with.

If you’re trying to compose a melody, while putting lyrics to it? That’s far more difficult than
crafting the melody first, then moving onto the lyrics after you’ve written one.

Step 2: Start with a title or phrase.

To Graham, the production and feel of “Myth of You” had me picturing driving down Highway 1 in
the West Coast with my wife.

As such, he started to think about lyrics being a happy love song. But when he was starting to
build the lyrics, he thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to have a phrase, falling for the myth of you?”

Myth is a word that creates so many different analogies - from the version of the person you’ve
fallen for, for the stories people tell you about the person you’re in love with, and so on.

It fit perfectly into the melody idea he had already, and there we were!

Using “you” in the first person perspective also gives a stronger universal appeal to the main lyric.

Step 3: Tell the truth and make it rhyme.

This is a lesson Graham took from John Lennon, as he personally loved melodies more than lyrics
growing up.

But if you write about something meaningful to you, chances are, people will relate to your lyrics
something far more than just gibberish.

One of the best ways to write something meaningful, is to simply tell the truth, and make it rhyme.

The song starts with “I could search nearly everyday and never find someone so divine” - this ties
into the theme Graham decided on in Step 2, working with the melody he came up with in Step 1
as well.

Then the next lyric is “Voice like a breeze and a face like the sun, just the thought of you blows my
mind”. It’s flowery and descriptive, but it also tells the truth.

“Tell me more, tell me more, I believe every story you confide” - you can tell the narrator of the
song is smitten.

“I’m caught in a dream and don’t wanna wake up, because I can see you every night” - Starts to
tie into the main lyrical hook, while playing with the subject matter.

Say something direct that people can identify with, but you don’t need to be super direct either.
It’s a balance that takes time to understand.

Pre-chorus: “The vision fades a little, but I can’t look away, just let me dream a little more and I’ll
be okay” - coming back to reality, but the narrator can’t stop looking at the vision of the one he’s
in love with.

And then the hook comes, and sums up the entire lyrical matter of the song.

Step 5: Recording & Producing

At this stage of the music making process, we’ve got our song ideas mapped out, the structure
and arrangement created, and it’s time to start beefing up the production of the songs.

But how do you avoid overproducing your demo, so that it doesn’t change the initial feeling and
groove you’ve created, while turning it from a rough idea into a polished, professional, release-
ready track?

I personally take time to step away from my DAW and studio, have the demos on my phone,
and listen to them while taking notes on what are the top 5 things that would finish the
song.

This helps prevent overproducing your music, and avoiding the trap of adding things simply for
the sake of adding them to your track.

Maybe you’ve got a guitar riff and it’s a singer-songwriter track. But if it’s a minimal track, figure
out what are some things that would make the song feel finished. Is it a polished mix? A master?
Maybe background “oohs/ahs” in the chorus?

Be specific with what the track needs to become a finished product.

After I’ve done that, then I start adding production elements to finish the songs I’m working
on.

Production Candy on “Myth of You”

The song starts with the drums and a strong bass riff. As those are the main two pillars of the
song, I’ve added more beef to the drums with an additional overdriven track to the drum loop.

To thicken the original bass line Graham played, I’ve added a Reason Rack Plugin Effect that
gives it a fuzzy, biting distortion.

To reinforce the song’s low end, I’ve also added in another kick and snare to get the drums beefed
up, and powerful in the mix.

The chorus plays around with a piano riff. I originally start with the Una Corda piano library, and
then add on an EQ, a reverb, a multi band compressor, some chorus, compression, and final EQ
to balance everything out.

The reverb adds a ton of dimension and space, while the multi band compressor squeezes the
mid-high frequencies to bring in the more plucky sound of the piano. Then, the chorus effect
finishes the sound of the piano, giving it a feel of 90s grunge music.

Then, Graham recorded a simple crunchy guitar track to round out the chorus production.

Those elements make up the cornerstone of the song, and the rest of the production was filling
out the space, without taking out the initial feel and energy of the demo track.

To fill out the piano, I then used a shimmery, bright-sounding synth from Arturia’s Analog Lab to
play the same notes from the piano MIDI track. After that, I add on an Absynth 5 track playing the
same notes to create a complete sound for the piano riff.

Then, there’s a Serum two-oscillator sawtooth wave synth pad underneath reinforcing the chords
of the chorus, alongside a bounced version of the synth track transposed an octave higher.

The combined synths create a perceived shimmery reverb tail to the piano, while filling in
harmonic spots throughout the mix.

You can listen to Myth of You here

Step 6: Mixing
When it comes to getting a great mix, it starts with getting great recordings, and a compelling
performance to start with.

There’s a lot online about how to mix, but I want to share with you 3 simple techniques to get your
mix sounding great in just a few hours.

Mixing Step 1: Start by balancing the faders

At the beginning of your raw mix, don’t even start with a single plugin.

Start with balancing the volumes of your mix!

If you’ve got multiple tracks recorded, try and get a decent-sounding rough mix, just with faders
alone.

Most of us know the basics of mixing - but so many times, we jump ahead of ourselves.

Before we start reaching out for our favorite plugins, EQing and compressing every track we can
get our hands on… make sure you can hear everything in your mix first!

Spend at least 20-30 minutes balancing the volume and pan of the tracks in your mix,
before you start adding plugins into the mix.

You can start by turning all your faders to zero, and then balancing from there, or starting with all
your faders from the bottom, and start to bring up the drums, bass, critical instruments and the
rest of your mix.

Besides balancing volumes, play around with the panning options of various tracks. If you’ve got
multiple elements of the production playing the same line for sonic texture, even panning stereo
tracks mono can work very well.

Remember: Once you enter Plugin Land, there is NO way out.

Sure, you can adjust volume and pan afterward, but then mentally you’ve shifted into a different
headspace.

Use EQ, compression and effects to enhance the balance of tracks you start with in the
beginning!


Once you’ve got your balance put together, it’s time to move onto the next step…

Mixing Step 2: Bring in a reference track

Find a track that you enjoy with a similar production to your raw tracks, so you can have a clear
comparison of what a professional mix sounds like to your raw mix.

Once you’ve compared your song to the pro mix, you’ll know what you need to do to create a
great mix for your song!

For “Myth of You”, Graham referenced Coldplay’s “Paradise”, as they have similar styles of
production.

Now’s the time to study the pro mix, and note what makes it different from your mix. Is it the way
the guitars are mixed? Is the low end stronger and more upfront in the mix? How is the vocal
sitting in the mix? What about the song’s stereo width?

And when you reference a pro mix… it tells you what a good mix sounds like on your
speakers!

If there’s something weird about the reference when you’re playing it - then it’s your room,
headphones or speaker setup that sounds weird!

Use the reference to understand how the low and top ends of your mix should sound in your
room.

Mixing Step 3: Just enhance the song a bit

Don’t try to change your mix. Instead, enhance what’s already there.

Before you start reaching for a rack of plugins, and putting on crazy effects on everything… start
by listening to your mix, and figuring out how to enhance it further.

Graham focuses on subtle enhancement moves with EQ and compression, and only after
that begins to add effect sends, such as reverb and delay.

For this mix, he has a light slap delay on all the vocals, and a room reverb to the drums and lead
vocals.

After that, he uses automation at the end to finish things up.

A lot of this sounds OBVIOUS. But most people tend to miss this point!

There isn’t a need for drastic EQ, compression or effects. Work with subtle enhancements, and
little moves that add up a big difference in your mix.

Don’t get lost in the weeds when mixing. Start with balancing your tracks, using a
reference, and then subtly enhance your way to a pro-sounding mix.

Step 7: Mastering
Mastering is taking your finished mixes, and getting them to a commercial volume, and to have
the shine and sheen that grabs your listener’s attention, and sounds pro right from the first
second.

While you can master your songs with plugins, or send your mixes to a pro mastering engineer,
we used eMastered to master our EP, and we’re very happy with the results.

The important thing to know when it comes to mastering is that you’re simply preparing your
mixes for commercial release - by this point, your mixes should already be sounding polished and
pro.

Mastering isn’t a dark art, or something that you’ve got to pay hundreds of dollars for today with
the tools we have.

Once you’ve used a mastering service, simply check your mastered track with other commercially
released tracks to ensure it’s at the right volume level, that the dynamic range sits correctly, and
after that - you’re ready to move onto the next step.

Step 8: Readying Your EP

One of the most important things when it comes to making your EP… is deciding the sequence
your songs should flow in!

You might have some bias on how you want to structure your song, depending on the type of
albums and records you listened to growing up.

I like to assume the best in people, and that they’re going to listen to at least the first two
tracks of your EP.

So you could put a slower, more experimental introduction track to your EP as its first track, and
then a more single-orientated track as number 2.

However, there are a few things to keep in mind whenever you’re sequencing a set of tracks for an
EP:

Try to tell a story with the sequence of your songs - start with something that kicks off the
lyrical themes of the EP, or the musical vibe of the EP.

Have some release in the middle of your EP - if you’ve got several uptempo, hyped up tracks
to start your EP, put in a slower tempo, perhaps a ballad-type song to balance things out.

Think about your EP like a mini movie. Sure, you can have the amazing songs where they’re full of
action, uptempo, and showing everything you’ve got as a musician and artist.

But also make sure there’s moments where the listener can breathe, and take a second to absorb
all the music you’re giving them!

With the songs of our EP, we decided to name the EP “The Good Life” - which is a track
inside the EP as well.

As the name could be taken in a negative or positive direction, it opens up an viewpoint in the
listener’s mind. Have we gotten “The Good Life”? Are we aspiring to it? And so on.

A good way to name an EP or body of work is simply to name it after one of the songs in
your album. Examples of this would be Bruce Springsteen’s “Born To Run” album, or
Soundgarden’s “Superunknown”.

You could also take a lyric from one of the songs in your EP, and name it after that as a
subtle reference to it as well. An example of this would be Billie Eilish’s debut album, “When we
all fall asleep, where do we go?” (referencing a track in her album, “bury a friend”)

You want to pick a title that’s compelling, interesting, and sets the right theme for your music.

Now, ou do not need a graphic designer to design your cover artwork. While you can go to
fiverr.com or other similar websites to find someone to design your artwork, as you can see
inside the module we use unsplash.com and canva.com to create our artwork.

Don’t be afraid to try out several designs, and to get feedback from friends and other musicians.

A song’s artwork can often be a deciding factor on whether you’re listened to on platforms such
as Spotify and Apple Music, so don’t skimp out on making the best artwork possible.

At the same time, don’t let perfectionism stop you from finishing your artwork.

Think compelling, attention-grabbing, and professional.

Remember that with all the free tools today, you can do it yourself - you don’t need to spend
hundreds of dollars on a graphic designer to create an artwork you’re satisfied with.

Step 9: Distributing Your EP

At this point, give yourself a huge pat on the back!

Your EP has been produced, mastered, sequenced, your artwork’s created, and now all you have
left to do is to distribute and promote it out to the world.

But how do you distribute your music?

There are platforms such as cdbaby.com, tunecore.com and distrokid.com that will help you
distribute your music to the various streaming platforms available online.



However, be sure to check that the service provider you choose will distribute your music
on platforms that are important to you.

For example, CDBaby doesn’t distribute your tracks to TikTok, whereas DistroKid does.

However, CDBaby helps with publishing, and also offers other services in their packages.

Take time to go through the various platforms, and to see what’s the best fit for your music and
what option satisfies you the most.

Personally, I use DistroKid for releasing my music.

These services also give you the option of letting your music be pre-ordered, which can be useful
for building up hype for the release of your EP.

When you’re distributing your music, be sure to avoid the mistakes that beginners can
sometimes make.

For example, you don’t need to use multiple music distribution services when putting your music
out to the world. It can cause hiccups in the various streaming platforms your music’s on.

Make sure that the metadata of your songs are correct. The artist name, the genres, the sub-
genres, the key details of your tracks are extremely crucial so that the streaming platform can
figure out where to place and feature your music.

You don’t want to make a rock album that gets featured in the acoustic section!

And you don’t want any spelling mistakes in your artist name or album tracks either.

So be sure to check that the exported file of the songs you’re uploading has the correct metadata
(which you can use iTunes to do so), as that gets copied and embedded into the release of your
music.

Step 10: Promoting Your EP

This final step is all about making some noise about your EP in order to get it heard!

To promote your EP, you want to be building anticipation for your EP release on social media at
least a month in advance, and share teasers of your using release with your audience.

There are sites like Submithub that you can use to pitch your songs to blog owners and playlist
curators, but it’s important to be careful of scams of services promising lots of listeners to your
songs.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Ultimately, the best way to build a filing is to
continually make friends with other like minded artists and producers, and promote each other’s
music to your audiences.

To promote our EP, we personally used our social media to notify our audiences of our upcoming
release, and shared the music with them regularly once the EP was released.

I hope you enjoyed this short guide to making and releasing your EP!

If you enjoyed this guide, be sure to stay tuned for future videos on the Recording Revolution
YouTube channel where I’ll be teaching you how to make and release your EP this year as an
independent artist.